INCESSANT MURMUR SURROUNDS MY BED

Journal Entry
Sunday 11/21/2004
At 6:45 a.m.

In a twilight sleep, I’m hugging a lump of something. Snoozing and waking, I’m inclined to think it’s Max. “I’m sorry I lost you,” I say as tears stream down my cheeks and onto fluffy pillows. A cheery hum fills the room, and in a little while, I come to the cosmic conclusion that the chirp is emanating from an animal of a different sort. Lifting my head nary an inch, I find myself sniffing the shiny mane of a black cat.

“Oh Allie!” I say, snorting and wiping fine hair from my mouth. As if put out, she lets out a high-pitched cry. So I stroke her ear and say, “There there, sweetie, it’s alright.” In a little while, she hangs loose and I pull her close to me. Soon we’re off and away once more.

But not for long. Now something else is trying hard to disrupt that dreamy state of consciousness I so rightly deserve. I groan, realizing I won’t get that extra Sunday snooze after all; for an incessant murmur seems to be surrounding my bed like a high-pitched electromagnetic charge.

Where is this infernal noise coming from? I put my ear up to my little one’s head and she gives me a sideways glance, like hey dude, what’s happening? Her purring has stopped yet the maddening drone persists. I close my eyes.

Before long, I’m able to make out the familiar timbre of it all. Max. And in a flash, an echo as his thoughts stream to the forefront of my brain:

You haven’t lost anything, and you have gained so much more:
in love and compassion, in insight into What Is; into All That Is!

*****

I sigh and breathe into fluffy pillows and relish my dear one’s sentiments for as long as I can without losing them. Then I turn to the end table where I (now) keep pad and pen. Quickly, I scribble his words down on paper for posterity, and maybe with a little luck, for all time.